Bills to Watch in Texas Legislature

Here are bills filed in the current Texas Legislative session that may be of interest to mineral owners:

House Bill 539: This is the bill to prohibit municipalities from banning drilling within their jurisdictions.

Senate Bill 540: The Senate’s version of House Bill 539.

House Bill 1552: Filed by Representative Craddick, this bill declares that “allocation wells” – horizontal wells drilled across multiple tracts without pooling – are allowed by oil and gas leases unless expressly prohibited, and requires the Texas Railroad Commission to rule on how production should be allocated among the tracts crossed by the wellbore if the mineral owner disputes the lessee’s allocation method.

Senate Bill 118: Filed by Senator Van Taylor, this is the new and improved version of his bill from last session, authorizing forced pooling of tracts for secondary and tertiary recovery units. Titled (ironically) “Oil & Gas Majority Rights Protection Act for Secondary & Tertiary Recovery Operations.”

Senate Bill 402: This bill requires a company paying royalties, if requested, to provide the formula used to calculate the royalty owner’s decimal interest on a division order.

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